Well-Seated

Today’s draft grew from a writing group prompt about bottles. It started with remembering the shape of a Red White and Blue beer bottle and grew to include the whole scene. It still delights me how one detail can open up on a full-sense memory.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedNever choose the folding chairs with the woven-strap seats. Here is why: The last one to sit there fell through the rotted straps, flat on their ass on the groundlittle puffs of dust settling around their stunned facedirt in the lines of the palms of their hands.Granddad laughed into the mouth of his Red White and Blue beer bottle,making that whoosh-whoosh noise as they stood up from the dirt. Grandad chooses the blue metal chair from twenty, thirty, forty years ago.Royal blue metal with rust at the edges,groans and creaks when he sits -- but never breaks.That chair will never break.It will sit on the porch after we are all dead and gone andturned to soil that feeds the treesthat shade the porch where that blue metal chair still sits.,one rust-eaten hole at the backmaking that whoosh-whoosh noise as the wind blows through.